sinovels Chapter 98 Inspection Completed
Chapter 98 Inspection Completed
Luo Jinnian stayed in Cleveland for five days.
He seriously followed Director Mo to visit every filming location. On the first day, he saw the location of the murderer's apartment, which was in an old building that had been abandoned for twenty years. Large patches of plaster had peeled off the walls in the corridor, revealing the blackened cement underneath.
Director Mo shone a flashlight on the ceiling and said that a light should be added here, one of those exposed light bulbs, with a low wattage, to create the feeling that the whole city is hopeless, although in Luo Jinnian's opinion, that was also true.
He stood there, closed his eyes, and imagined John Du sitting in that chair, with the light shining down from above.
That scene had appeared many times in movies in his previous life, but now, standing in this space, he realized how important the set design was.
We also visited the police station, which was, of course, closed down. It was an abandoned municipal building with a very high ceiling in the lobby.
Director Mo said that with a slight modification, this place could become the location where Somerset and Mills discuss the case, with that empty, desolate, funeral-like atmosphere, which is the atmosphere needed in the show.
Luo Jinnian paced back and forth in the hall several times, and the image of Somerset standing in front of the window automatically appeared in his mind.
They then looked at the Mills' apartment. It was a two-story, white-painted timber house in an old residential area in the Cleveland suburbs.
Director Mo said that renting this place wasn't expensive, the neighborhood was quiet, and it was perfect for filming the scene where "the box was delivered." Luo Jinnian stood under the porch looking at the street across the street, and the scene from the movie in her previous life flashed through her mind. Mills was standing here, Somerset got out of the car, and the two looked at each other without saying a word.
The selection of crime scenes was undoubtedly of paramount importance. Five cases—Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Lust, and Pride—each took Director Mo to a different location.
The case of Laziness left the deepest impression on Luo Jinnian. The filming location was an abandoned warehouse outside Cleveland, a large space with several holes rusted through the sheet metal roof.
Director Mo said the bed would be placed in this position, the camera would push in from that direction, and then slowly zoom in, revealing that the "person" was still alive.
The final two scenes were filmed on an empty lot outside Cleveland, surrounded by nothing but a straight road leading into the distance. The light there is best at dusk, turning the sky orange-red, creating a stark contrast to the film's overall somber tone.
Luo Jinnian stood there waiting for the sun to set, watching the colors on the horizon gradually change, recalling a quote someone had once said in his past life—"The most despairing ending in the history of Seven."
After sightseeing, Luo Jinnian flew from Cleveland back to Beijing, spent a day in Beijing, met with Meng Zhao and editor Jia Bei, and then flew back to his hometown.
When the plane landed in the afternoon, the sun was still shining brightly back home, a completely different world from the gloomy, rainy days in Cleveland.
He pulled his suitcase off the baggage carousel, the wheels rumbling on the concrete. As he dragged the suitcase out of the terminal, Gu Yanxi sent him a message: "Back already?"
Luo Jinnian replied with a single word: "Mm".
Don't be late for class tomorrow.
Luo Jinnian smiled as he read the message, put his phone back in his pocket, and got into a taxi.
The day after he returned home, he went to school early in the morning.
Gu Yanxi was waiting for him at the school gate, holding two cups of soy milk and handing one to him.
Luo Jinnian took the drink, took a sip, and nodded in satisfaction. The sweet soy milk was right.
"Is America fun?" Chu Qingning asked.
"I'm not going there for fun. I'm going to work."
"Tch." Gu Yanxi bit her straw and looked at him. "Who would believe you, a middle school student, saying you're 'going to work'?"
Luo Jinnian was too lazy to explain.
Upon entering the classroom, Chu Qingning was already seated with an English textbook open in front of her, but her gaze wasn't on the book; when she saw her younger brother enter, her eyes were fixed on him.
Luo Jinnian walked to his seat and put down his backpack. Gu Yanxi asked him how the scenery was. Luo Jinnian said it was pretty good. Cleveland was a great place to film "Seven". It rained a lot and was always gloomy.
As Gu Yanxi listened to his description of the light in the abandoned warehouse, the dappled sunlight in the police station lobby, and the desolate wilderness at dusk, she listened quietly and then only said one sentence: "You're gone for five days this time, and people on the forum have already posted asking why you haven't updated."
Luo Jinnian was taken aback. He opened the forum and sure enough, there was a post titled "Early Spring Tea has disappeared again." Below, someone commented, "The last time he disappeared was last year while filming 'The Long Season.' This time, he's probably busy with another project." Someone else posted a screenshot of his story "Grandma," which he had published in *New Sharp Reading* years ago, saying, "This is Early Spring Tea's earliest short story. Does anyone have an earlier one?"
Over the weekend, Luo Jinnian finalized the headline for the January issue of "Story Club" in his rented apartment. It wasn't the serialized "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty," which was progressing normally, with one issue per month, each around 10,000 words, enough to continue for more than a year.
He plans to publish a new short story as the lead story of the January issue, a story about "three old men solving a case in Northeast China," which he wrote himself.
He had already written "The Long Season" in his previous life, but that script used the framework and details of his previous life. He wanted to try to see if he could write a complete story without relying on his memories of his previous life, based solely on his understanding of narrative rhythm and his grasp of character development.
He spent three or four weeks writing, deleting and revising repeatedly. The final draft wasn't bad, but he felt it wasn't good enough. He saved the draft in the "To be revised" folder and dragged the serialized version of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" into the layout folder.
When Jiabei received the manuscript, she asked, "Did you switch back the one on the front page?" Luo Jinnian replied with "Mm," and Jiabei didn't ask why.
In his previous life, Somerset said at the end of Seven, "The world is a beautiful place, worth fighting for," and he only agreed with the second half of that statement.
At that time, he felt that agreeing with only the second half of the statement was enough, but now he thinks that he may have gradually begun to agree with the first half.
It's not because the world has become better, but because he's started to feel that even if the world hasn't become better, being able to stand in one place and wait for the sun to set, being able to walk with two girls and watch their shadows grow long, knowing that he still has to go to class, write articles, and deal with those never-ending things tomorrow, and having many readers who need his work, and of course, more importantly, having his family around him—these trivial, repetitive, and insignificant daily routines are perhaps the kind of "beauty" mentioned in the first half of the sentence.
It's hard to believe that a middle-aged woman only spent a year in prison.
Luo Jinnian wondered where he would stand when she came out.